


A Long Road Ahead

by agressivePushover



Series: Forms of Communication [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mental Health Issues, Other, Tweek is Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:46:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 6,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6531667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agressivePushover/pseuds/agressivePushover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short glimpses into the bizarre and horrifying home life of Tweek Tweak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dark

It… It was dark. I never liked the dark. It brought uncertainty, confusion, danger. The unknown was always scary. It still is.

But it was dark, and, understandably, I was… Terrified. Terrified because I knew where I was, and I knew why I was there. The doors were locked, and the huge, metallic beasts that inhabited the room _towered_ over my small frame, and I was crying. Shaking and crying. I… I did that a lot back then.

It was past closing time. Dad forgot me again. I didn’t know what time it was; there aren’t any windows in the back, no clocks. Just gigantic machines and towering crates of unground coffee beans.

I heard a sound- a squeak. I was scared. I could only see outlines, and other than that there was nothing. I thought it was a monster, and so I scrambled around blindly for a lightsource, a shelter, a safe haven.

Something was brushing against my leg. It was furry, and it smelled like disease. I screamed.

There was an empty box around. The second I found it, I crawled in, and I stayed, huddled there, shaking and crying as quietly as I could manage, for the rest of the night.

It took about an hour to get me to leave when my dad finally opened for the day.

I didn’t go to work for a little while after that. Or school. I just stayed in my bed with the light on. I couldn’t turn it off.

It had been so dark.


	2. Locks

I'd had a friend over. This didn’t happen too often because my friends didn’t really like my house all that much, but despite this fact, I'd had a friend over, and I'd been pretty happy about it.

We’d gone to my house from school, and we were playing video games when my dad burst into my room, obviously upset with me.

He said, “Tweek, you left the door unlocked! Do you know how dangerous that is? You could get yourself killed doing that kind of thing, didn’t I tell you about that serial killer whose favorite victims are blonde little boys? He’s been in the Denver area, that’s close to here!” I’d been so embarrassed, and even when I told him that I knew, it was just an honest mistake, he didn’t believe me.

He started talking about the possibilities, all the ways someone could get me and either kill me or do some other unspeakable thing to me, and as he went on, I stopped caring that he was saying all of this right in front of my friend and started caring about the fact that he was right. He was right, someone could break in if I didn't lock the doors, they could hurt me, or kill me, or torture me until I'm a husk of my former self, maybe even worse!

And all because I forgot to lock the door, Jesus, what was I _thinking_?!

Needless to say, I'd been pretty preoccupied when he’d made my playmate go home.

Of course, due to this incident, I was grounded like some long winded coffee metaphor, and there was nothing I could tell him that would change his mind. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house to go anywhere but the coffee shop for a long while, not that I was all too adverse to the idea after what I did.

For some reason, there was nothing in the news about any serial killers in the Denver area. But… He wouldn’t lie to me.

He wouldn’t.


	3. Coffee

I remember the first time I drank coffee.

I’d been four. Four years old. My dad called me into the kitchen. The coffee machine beeped, and he poured a cup, handing it to me. My hands were so small, I almost dropped it... But I didn’t.

“Drink up, Tweek. You’re a coffee man’s son, you need to get to know the product.” That’s what he said.

I’d tried it. I’d spit it out. It wasn’t juice, it wasn’t milk, and it definitely wasn’t water. I didn’t like it. Then Dad told me I’d be grounded if I didn’t down the whole thing, grounded like some dumb, out-there metaphor he somehow came up with right on the spot, and when you’re four, that is the worst thing you think can happen.

I’d cried as I chugged the yucky stuff down.

From that point on, he wouldn’t let me drink anything but that disgusting brown liquid. My sippy cups were filled with it, my dinners were accompanied by it… I was so shaky in the beginning that I couldn’t even play with my toys!

I couldn’t sleep, eat, or do anything but sit, shaking and twitching all the while. I was _miserable_ ; I cried every day for the first two weeks.

But well… I had to get used to it at some point.

Once I got over the taste and the worst of the jitters, it… It got better.

My parents didn’t pay attention to me much, not from what I can remember, but they always gave me the time of day when they were ready to pump me full of my next dose of caffeine. I… I thought it was just how they showed they loved me. I thought that for a while. It… It was just their weird way of showing affection, that’s all…

They just had a weird way of showing that they care.

Because they cared about me. Of course they cared.

Right?


	4. Trust

“Don’t you trust us?”

That’s something they always said.

“Don’t you trust us, Tweek? Don’t you trust us?”

They knew damn well I trusted them. They knew because every time they told me some insane, outlandish tale about a monster or crazed maniac, I believed them. Even when I wasn’t sure, if they said that, you _know_ I took their word for it.

And the things they’d tell me were pretty far-fetched.

They’d talk about how if I didn’t brush my teeth and floss every night, the tooth-fairy would come into my room and pull out all my teeth, one by one.

They’d say if I missed a shift, we’d go bankrupt, and they’d have to sell me into slavery to make the money back.

They told me that if I didn’t drink my coffee, the machines would go batshit and rise against me to… To force it down my throat until I overdosed!

And every time, every fucking time, I’d ask them “Really? Are you sure?!” And I would be so scared, I’d be shaking and twitching like crazy, it was no good, man!

But then they’d always pull the same lame shit on me, every time it was “Well, don’t you trust us? We’re your parents, why would we lie?” Or some variation on that, and then I’d be scared out of my _mind_ with all the possibilities, terrified to the point of _hysterics_.

And it was just an endless cycle, an endless cycle of fear of the unknown and then fear of what I already thought I knew, and then fear of everything, and then just… Just constant terror, at any prospect of life, at _anything_...

The worst part is, there’s _still_ a part of me that believes them.


	5. Cold

It was always kinda strange to me that my parents wouldn’t buy me a jacket. All the other kids had one, and with the eternally Christmas-type weather of this town, it’s usually more practical to wear something thicker than a flannel. I was always cold in the clothes I wore, except for the few summer months that blessed South Park, but in that time, most of the residents overheat on a regular basis.

At any rate, for the majority of the year, South Park was freezing, and so was I. It was at least some of the cause for that constant shaking, I’m sure, even if I know there was more to it than that.

I did ask my parents for a reason once. A reason for why I had to suffer through the cold and other kids stayed warm in their parkas and windbreakers and heavy sweaters. All my mom told me was that the outside world is a dangerous place, and they don’t want me wandering too far from home when I could just stay nice and toasty indoors.

It hadn’t sit right with me, but at the time, I hadn’t thought much of it. I hadn’t thought much of a lot of things my parents did when I was a kid. Too busy worrying about all the dangers and terrors life had in store, all the gnomes and monsters and usual horrifying strangeness of our quiet little mountain town…

But thinking about it now, well.

I... I think about it a lot these days.

What kind of parents just let their kid freeze in the snow?


	6. Screams

I woke up to screaming.

It was startling and alarming and absolutely horrifying.

I jumped out of bed and crept toward my door. I had to check, I had to see what was going on, Mom coulda been in trouble, it sounded like Mom.

I can remember that as I reached the door, the only thoughts swimming around in my head at that point were all the possibilities that could result from exiting the safety of my bedroom.

The screaming went on for what felt like hours, bloodcurdling screams from across the hall, definitely across the hall, and- where were the neighbores, how could they not hear this?

Then, as abruptly as I was almost sure it started… The screams stopped.

Then…

Footsteps, walking closer to my room, getting louder and louder as they neared my door.

I heard the lock click.

The doorknob turned.

I was petrified. I was frozen in my spot, I couldn’t move, my only movements were the involentary jitters and twitches that came with a lifetime of caffiene abuse. I was so afraid, I was sure whoever was at the door was planning to kill me, I remember thinking  _No, no, I'm not ready to die, not yet-_

My eyes were closed, but I could hear the door, I could hear it opening slowly- horrifyingly, painfully slowly -and…

And then I opened my mouth, and I tried as hard as I could to shout, yell, shriek, cry, something... But there was nothing. No sound would pass my lips.

I opened my eyes, and the person before me was…

My dad. It was just my dad, standing there, frowning at me. “Why’re you up, Tweek? It’s five in the morning, you should be in bed. Just go back to bed, son, you have work tomorrow.”

And then just like that, he left, closing and locking the door behind him as I fell to the ground, breath catching in my chest as my heart raced, the sound of its beating ringing in my ears.

My mom was fine the next day, just fine, but… I know I didn’t just imagine the screaming. It wasn’t just a halucination, I'm sure...

I know I heard it.


	7. Watching

They were always watching me. I know they were, they had me.. Bugged, chipped, something. There was something.

They always knew what I was doing always knew if I was… If I was straying from where I had to be, or doing something I wasn’t supposed to, or anything. They knew where I was, what I was doing, or saying even… I swear they must have known what I was THINKING!

This one time, when they left me in charge of the shop, it… It was busy, there were people crowding the counter, demanding pastries that I’d ran out of long ago, and it was just me there, no one else, I couldn’t go in the back to… to get supplies, anything like that, there were too many customers!

I got... overwhelmed, so overwhelmed and I just… I made everyone leave, and I closed the shop. I couldn’t handle it, it was too much pressure!

I stayed in the shop until the end of my shift; I thought I could get past them, just this once, but when I got home, well…

They were waiting for me.

My dad lectured me for hours about the importance of keeping the shop open, how we lost so much money today, and… And how he might need to sell me into slavery just to make the money back! He threatened to sell me to someone in another country!

I was scared by the end of it, scared of what might happen to me, but well… There was nothing I could’ve done! There weren’t enough people working, there wasn’t anyone working besides me, I was overwhelmed, there weren’t nearly enough goods left to sell with all the customers!

I tried to tell him that, but he never listened to me, he never listened! All his points led either to nowhere or to something horrifying, and I wanted out, man, I wanted out!

But well… There wasn’t really a way out. There was nothing I could do… I couldn’t leave, they’d find me, they always knew where I was, no matter what! They could see me, I know they could. There must have been cameras, there had to be, they were always watching…

Always watching me.


	8. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There is implied drug use in this chapter.

I remember that morning like it was just earlier today. I got up, got dressed… i was ready to go to work, I was fine. I’d been happy; I’d just had a sleep over at Clyde’s the day before, and a guy I liked a lot had kissed me. I’d wanted to stay over another day, but there was work. I had to go to work.

My mom put sugar in my coffee. Out of all the things that happened that morning, no matter how sharp and clear it all still is, that is the clearest. My mom put sugar in my coffee.

I don’t like sugar in my coffee, it messes up the taste. It makes it taste off. But… This time, it tasted even weirder. I still drank it all down, of course; I need my coffee, I need to drink it every morning.

I’d felt really good that day. Euphoric, almost.

No, euphoric is the perfect description.

I’d been so happy, and everything felt so good. I didn’t even care about how busy it was, or that I messed up some orders, or that I couldn’t focus. All that mattered was the fact that I felt wonderful.

Until that same afternoon.

The last thing I remember clearly is that good feeling vanishing. Then, it… It’s hard to recall exactly what went on.

I remember… I remember collapsing. I remember collapsing in the middle of my shift. People screaming… All I could think about was the fact that I wasn’t gonna get to go over Clyde’s house again today.

It hurt so bad, everything hurt so _bad_ when I woke up in my bed, and I just curled up and shook with pain and jitters because it was too much. My head was spinning, I could barely think.

Then there was…. my dad and mom, their blurry faces, hovering over me with weird expressions, cooing to me and murmuring that it’ll be fine, don’t worry… Just don’t go out again.

Don’t go out again, you always feel so terrible when you’re away so long, it must be homesickness, just… stay at home.

I didn’t go over Clyde’s house again.

Not after that.


	9. Scribbles

I would see things sometimes. Things that… That weren’t there. I still do. See, hear… feel things that don’t really exist. Not that I usually know that at the time.

It could be anything. Voices, bugs, monsters… People. Whole scenes will play out in front of me, scenes that aren’t really happening.

I remember there were times where I’d question if my friends were real. Were they actually there, or was I just talking to myself? I’m… I’m still not sure, sometimes.

I don’t know why I’m like this. I’m pretty good, though, I don’t usually get violent when I have an… an “episode”, I guess. I’ll just… Freak out, and maybe it’s scary, I don’t know, but I never… I never hurt anyone.

It’s worse when I’m alone. Those are the scariest ones… I can’t remember most of them, but there was this one time…

It was around one, I think. One in the morning I mean. I don’t get much sleep.

I was sitting in my room, stressing over school, and then all of a sudden, there was a figure, standing over me. It was… It’s hard to put it into words. It looked like 3D scribbles in a humanish form, all angles and loops and weird shapes, and they moved like… Like a movie with missing frames. The only thing that looked real about it was… Was its eyes. Its eyes were so realistic-looking compared to the rest of it, it was… It was horrifying!

It didn’t actually move that much. It just kinda swayed in an invisible breeze, shapes swirling and swimming around on its body as it just… Just stood there, hovering. Staring at me. Into me. Its eyes were dead, bloodshot. Yellowed with… I don’t know what.

It was about then that I realized it was making a noise. Like papers crinkling, and people whispering crude nonsense to each other.

This went on for what seemed like years, the figure just standing over me, staring through me, eyes unblinking, unmoving…

I couldn’t move either.

It was the longest, most terrifying few hours of my life.

I’m just glad I haven’t had a halucination like that in a while.

I hope I never have one again.


	10. Trash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter involves some possibly disturbing themes

He’d asked me to take out the trash.

There was nothing unusual about it; he asked me to take out the trash at work at least once a day.

There wasn’t anything unusual with his request.

What was unusual, however, was the time of day. And the specific place he asked that I dump it.

It was nine at night. The shop was closed, we were at home and it had long since gone dark outside. “Just go ahead and take this garbage to Stark’s Pond, okay, Tweek? Row out and dump it right in the middle of the pond for me.”

It was very heavy, I remember. It was heavy and it smelled… Bad. A different kind of bad, not like stale coffee and discarded pastries. Instead, it smelled like rotting meat.

I’d thought it was strange. My parents had stopped letting meat into the house the year before, and we didn’t sell anything but baked goods and coffee at the shop.

But… I decided not to worry about it. I’d learned it was better not to question my parents about these kinds of things. It didn’t lead to anything good.

I had finished the job without a hitch, rowing out into the middle of the pond and dumping the bag into the center. I went back home. It was fine.

I didn’t really take much notice of the missing person report the next day.

I took a bit more notice when they found the guy’s remains two years later.

It’s weird.

They said someone dumped him down in the middle of Stark’s Pond.


	11. Delivery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter has graphic depictions of violence.

I was so, so scared. My dad had told me I had to pick up the delivery. Told me it’d be fine, I just had to go over to that kid Kenny’s house and bring back the bag.

The door loomed over me as I knocked. I was in second grade, I think. Just a kid. Mrs. McCormick answered, and I held out the envelope. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the person meant to receive it. They were… In the “Guest House” out back.

Of course, I went on over and unlocked the door, envelope still clutched in one of my tiny hands. They… They’d just take it, give me the stuff and leave, right?

Wrong.

The room smelled terrible. Like chemicals, blood, and vomit. I was gagging a bit by the time they saw me.

The taller one, a scraggly-looking man, walked over. “You here for the four o’clock?” I nodded, shaking and twitching something awful, and held out the envelope. Then, the other one, an anorexic-looking girl, she… She held out her hand, motioning for him to stop.”Wait… Wait, no, I ain’t seen this kid around before… He must be workin’ for the fuzz!” Fuzz? I didn’t know what that was, and for whatever reason, that’s what my fear-clouded mind latched onto as they attacked.

I tried to fight back, I did, but I was so small, not nearly big enough to fend off a bunch of crazed drug addicts! That’s obviously what they were; even a six-year-old could figure that out. I remember seeing a glimmer, the shine of something metal in one of their hands, and before I knew what was happening, they’d plunged it deep into my arm.

I screamed. I screamed, and I started crying because I could feel how dirty it was, feel how disgusting and unclean it was… And then, they yanked it. They yanked it down and out, and the cut was so deep, a long, ugly gash all across the underside of my forearm... There was blood gushing from the wound, it was getting everywhere, all over my shirt and side, and I was just about ready to pass out.

I… I don’t remember anything after that. I can’t.

I still have a scar. It’s still there, big and white and ugly, and it would be glaringly obvious if I didn’t wear long sleeves all the time.

After that incident, my dad made sure to give them a picture of me. So… So it wouldn’t happen again. I liked to think it was because he didn’t want me hurt, but… He probably just wanted his errand boy in tact.


	12. Gnomes

They were there. I told everyone they were there, the gnomes, but no one... no one ever believed me!

I’d see them running around in broad daylight, doing whatever they pleased and taking what they wanted, like nobody knew they existed.

I knew. I always knew! I’d seen them ever since they first started coming to South Park, but when I told people, no one believed me! I was the only one.

It drove me crazy!

Once, I was just watching them steal my underwear, and my parents walked in, and they saw it happening, but even then, they just… Just acted like nothing was there! They looked right at them, they must have heard them at least, they were singing that god-awful song, just like always!

But they just started talking to me about school or something! I pointed at the gnomes, I started talking about them, but they didn’t believe me, they said there was nothing there!

They’d always tell me there was no such thing as underpants gnomes, and I know it sounds ridiculous in the first place, but they’d seen them, they had, they’d been right there, right next to the things, and they still said they didn’t exist!

After a while, I…. I- I thought I was going insane, I thought it was just a… another halucination, I was just constantly seeing things…

And then- And then Stan’s gang came along, and when they… When they saw them, I knew. I knew, they _must_  have been real, they’d seen them too, they _told_ me they had! I wasn’t… I wasn’t as crazy as I thought, and that was… It was good! It was nice. But...

I just couldn’t believe my parents lied to me.


	13. Alone

My parents liked going on vacations.

I don’t know where they went, but it was definitely somewhere out of town, because I never saw them around when they were gone.

Sure, it was… It was okay, not having to worry about them being there the second something went bad, but I mean, I still had to run the shop, and…

I wasn’t the best with being alone in the house.

I’d stay in my room mostly, unless I had a shift or school. I think they started leaving more around the time I stopped showing up for school as much, so that actually wasn’t usually a reason to go out.

It was… It was hard. It was hard to deal with. There were so many things, so many things that could happen, so many possibilities without them guarding the door…

I was afraid. That was it; I was afraid. Being alone… It always got me thinking. Imagining. Worrying… It made the possibility of something happening to me, something that no one could save me from… It made that so much more likely. It scared me. It had always scared me.

The prospect of going outside was… undesirable. The prospect of staying inside was also undesirable, but going outside was more of a risk. I had no clue what might be waiting for me downstairs, anyone, anything could be down there! I could get killed, or tortured, or worse! It… It- It just didn’t seem worth it to… To leave, unless I really had to…

My friends would come to see me sometimes though! Those times were pretty nice… It was usually when I got really bad, and… And didn’t go out to go to work. It was usually because I was just… Just too freaked out about everything, I guess.

Being alone… It was terrifying, there isn’t really a better way to describe it. I just hope I don’t have to deal with it too much in the future.


	14. Pear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains animal death.

I… I had a parrot when I was little. She was… Her name was Pear, and I loved her a lot. Her feathers weren’t the most colorful, just a yellow with a dark green ring around her neck, but that didn’t matter. She was pretty to me, and at that time, she was my best friend.

I hated that I had to put her cage next to that creepy clown thing my mom put in my room. It was always looking at me with those weird, dead eyes… Staring into my brain, my soul, Jesus man, it was terrible, I don’t even know why I had it!

I’m getting off subject.

I remember, Pear would always climb up on my head and make a little nest in my hair! It was her favorite thing to do, whenever I let her out she’d flutter up and take a seat on my head… She almost blended in, accept for the green stripe.

She kept me calm and happy during the worst of my episodes. She’d always be there to nuzzle me or squack about whatever was going on in that bird brain of hers when I was too freaked out to get out of bed, or too stressed to do anything but ramble about whatever conspiracies I was thinking…

But… One day, I… My parents, they took me on one of their… Vacations, for a while.

I don’t remember much of it.

I.. I do remember getting home. My parents didn’t get anyone to watch Pear for me.

She was… She was dead. She was dead.

Starved.

I picked her up, and I could feel all her bones, her feathers weren’t the same fluffy texture they were, they were… Dull. Matted.

I walked over to my bed, and I just laid down, Pear’s cold little body clutched to my chest as I cried.

I didn’t leave my bed for days. I only left when… When the smell got too much.

I had to bury her in the backyard… It was probably one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. Seeing her like that… Dead, lifeless, covered in dirt… I… I don’t wanna think about this anymore.

Pear was… She was a good bird.

I still miss her.


	15. Drugged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter has drug use.

I was appalled. Disgusted. Horrified.

Meth. They’d been putting meth in the coffee. The coffee we served, the coffee I made every day… Half the town was probably hopped up on the stuff at this point. Half the town was hooked on meth, and they didn’t even know it. Half the town was addicted…

Even me.

They drugged their own son. Their own son! They gave their own child this stuff, and they acted like it was no big deal. I didn’t know that’s what I was picking up at Kenny’s house when they sent me off to get the 4 o’clock delivery! If I had…

I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had. They had me under their thumb. I couldn’t breathe without them knowing, l couldn’t have just left, I couldn’t have stopped, I couldn’t have switched it out! 

All these innocent people… I let them do this. It was me I must have… It was my fault somehow, it had to be! That’s what I thought, that’s what I knew… So many innocent people…

I… I didn’t tell them I knew. They probably heard my conversation with Kenny about it; they must have. No point in bringing it up; it’d only make things worse.

All those remarks Cartman would make about my being a druggie no longer seemed that far from the truth. Because they were true. He was right.

I was a drug addict, and I hadn’t even known it.


	16. Trapped

I remember the day they finally trapped me.

I’d just gotten home from school, and I was getting ready for my shift at the coffee shop. My mom called me over.

“Listen, Tweek. Your father and I have been thinking, and we think it’d be best to pull you out of school.” You could practically hear the record-scratch sound effect. “What?!” I was so confused, so stressed. “But- But I need to go to school, I-ngh- I c-can’t- What about college and- ack- and going to- to…” It was about then that I realized why they were doing this. They… They didn’t want me to leave. Of course.

“Don’t worry, son, we’ll homeschool you. It’ll be just fine.”

I felt my mind draw a blank. I knew she was lying. They wouldn’t teach me a thing. All those AP classes… All the work I’d been doing, I- I’d even started to go to class again, it was my way out, I was gonna escape, if I just kept it up, kept up my grades and schoolwork, I was gonna-

I wasn’t gonna do anything.

“We want to keep you from getting hurt, all this heading out between home and other places is just too dangerous. And besides, you are not capable enough to handle all this by yourself, your ADD can be a real problem in the outside world. We want to help you, Tweek. We want to keep you safe.”

That… How could she say that? With all she’d done to me, with all both of them had done to me… How could she say that, how could they do this?

“We have… Also decided that you should spend some time away from your little friends. They’re corrupting your mind, hun, I can tell they’re up to something, and I don’t like it one bit.”

That… That made sense to me. That made me feel she was… More trustworthy, at that point, because my friends, they had been acting weird at that time, and it had been bothering me.

She patted my shoulder and sent me back up to my room to get ready for work, but by the time I got there, I… I couldn’t do it, I just collapsed onto my bed and stared at the ceiling for a while instead.

They… They’d finally done it. I was trapped forever.


	17. Starved

It had been days. It had been days since there was food in the house. They wouldn’t buy anything, they were… They were starving me, I swear, they had to be lying, but I wasn’t ready to take that chance.

It… It started because… Because my parents said the food, it was no good, it was… Toxic or something. I… Of course, I frantically started throwing everything away, because that shit’s scary, I could have gotten poisoned! I wasn’t ready to die like that.

Days turned to a full week, maybe a little over. Time had started to blur together. It had been so long since I’d last eaten, and my body showed it. I… I’d always been a bit on the chubby side. I would snack on pastries at work a lot, it- it was fine, not really much of a thing I thought about. But then… Well, by that time, I was terrified by the prospect of eating, because… it could be poisoned, they said so! And as a result, I had lost a lot of weight; my shirts went from form-fitting to overly-baggy in no time. It was unhealthy, I knew that, but I… I couldn’t just… Couldn’t just take a risk like that!

People at school were worrying. I was still in school at that point, I was probably… maybe 12? 13? I don’t remember. I was in middle school though, I know that. The teachers, my friends… They seemed concerned. I got called into the office several times, they asked me if I was eating. I said yes, of course; my parents, they’d warned me people might ask, said the school was heading this whole poison thing. So I lied, even if they didn’t quite believe me, and I went on with what I was doing.

Eventually… Eventually, after Mr. Mackey paid us a visit, my parents told me that they’d finally found some safe things to eat, but I could only get them at home. It wasn’t much, just some plain, bland grain-based foods, but… Well, that was enough, I guess.

I mean, at least I wasn’t starving anymore.


	18. Addicted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter includes implied drug use and a description of withdrawal that may seem graphic.

Sometimes, if I… if I messed up at the shop, or did something wrong, they’d take my coffee away. Wouldn’t give me a drop, even though they knew I needed it. They’d tell me I… I needed to learn my lesson, that I can’t go jeopardizing the family’s name like that…

The time… The time I had to go without it would vary. It depended on a lot of things. What I did, how they felt, where it happened… There was more, but I don’t want to get into it.

No matter how long it was, though, I… I suffered. I did.

The withdrawal was terrible.

I’d be bedridden, racked with chills and jitters even worse than usual, shaking and twitching like mad in my too-quiet room, the only sounds coming from my occasional ticks. Any fabric around me would be soaked in sweat, and I always felt so sick, all the time, even when nothing was hurting; I’m sure I nearly choked on my own vomit more than once... Every one of my joints ached, every inch of my body felt like it had been beaten over and over again with a sack of bricks… Every breath had felt like it might rip my throat and lungs to bits. Sometimes, it would get so bad that I would choke on the air I was trying to breathe in.

I... I’d be feverish the whole time, it felt like I was burning up from the inside out, and I’d see so many things, so many terrible things that weren’t there, things too horrific to remember or... or talk about, it was… It was all so horrifying. The worst part by far was the fact that I couldn’t sleep. There was no break from the… The torment, the awful scenes and excruciating pain, it just… It never stopped.

And… And then, just as it all wound down and started to ease up, Mom or Dad would be there with a cup of coffee and a smile that would always make my stomach churn.

But I’d always take the mug, and I’d always drink it down. Because I was addicted.

And in that house, there was nothing I could do about it.


	19. Bright

It had been… A while since I left the house. I couldn’t remember how long. I hadn’t even been going to work, and that was kinda weird. Really weird. That was okay, though. Leaving the house wasn’t the most ideal, anyways. Too many possibilities...

We were… Having dinner. It was strange, because it had probably been about five years since we’d last done that. But.. We were having dinner at the table. I couldn’t eat much of it; it had been too long since I had anything but grains, I- I couldn’t really… Handle the different foods. That seemed fine, though; they didn’t seem to mind.

The whole thing felt like a dream. The room was kinda tipping around, but I was pretty sure that was more because I hadn’t slept in a few days. I was pretty used to that kind of thing.

I wasn’t used to how… How bright everything was, though. It was really bright, too bright. My head was turning round and round, faster than the table seemed to be.

I dropped my fork.

My mom looked at me, and she smiled. I couldn’t remember how I got to the table. I couldn’t remember when I left my room... I hadn’t done that in days. There was… There was ringing, it was all around me. She said that… That they found us out. That we had to… Burn the evidence.

She stood up and told me to stay put, and for some reason, that was really funny to me. I don’t know why.

I could smell the smoke all around, it was getting in my nose, my mouth, my lungs, and suddenly, I couldn’t stop coughing. It was bright and so hot, way too hot. Everything looked orange and yellow, and it all felt orange and yellow, too.

I... I blacked out.


	20. Safe

“I… I heard sirens. There were sirens, they were coming closer. I remember that someone was yelling about… About a fire. I was confused. I couldn’t open my eyes.

Then next time I was awake enough to understand anything, I was in a hospital bed. The doctor… He said my parents set the house on fire. That they… Escaped, and left me… Left me inside. I asked him, ‘What do you mean?’ and then he told me that they just… they just left me there to die. The cops, they were getting a bit suspicious, and so they wanted to… Burn the evidence.

They considered me… Evidence. Nothing but a liability. I… I wasn’t their son, I was just their errand boy. Nothing but another piece of equipment… I-I couldn’t stop crying for a while after that… I just- it-it was all… it was all a lot to process.

They… They put me through so much… They’d always say they were just trying to- to keep me safe, but… I was never safe in that house. I’ve never been safe in my whole… My whole life! That-That… That’s a really scary thought, y’know? I’ve never really been safe before.

But… I guess I’m safe now. I’m not there, my mom, my dad… They’re long gone. They said… The police, when they came to question me, they- they said you saved me, pulled me out of the house…”

Tweek looked over at his best friend, the boy that he’d been around so long and been through so much with…

“I… I don’t know how to thank you, Craig. You… Jesus, you saved my life! I- ngh- I woulda burnt to a crisp if you hadn’t…” He stopped when he saw the tears in Craig’s eyes.

“Craig, are you-” He cut off with a startled noise when his friend pulled him into a hug. Then, he just melted into it and sighed, letting his friend cry as he cried a little himself.

After a while, Craig pulled away and looked over at Tweek. “I… I should have done something sooner… I’m sorry.”

Tweek just offered him a watery smile. “Don’t… Don’t worry about that, Craig. A-all that matters- all that matters now is that I- I’m safe, it’s over, right?” Craig hesitated before nodding.

The two of them turned back to Stark's Pond and looked over the expanse of water as well as the many, many trees surrounding it. Craig put an arm around Tweek’s shaking frame, and he knew that even though his friend was finally free from his monsterous parents…

He still had a long road ahead.


End file.
